People in the Isle of Man are being encouraged to check their pockets after a Manx £2 coin sold for £236.74 on eBay.

Ben Mason got the 2011 Isle of Man Commonwealth Youth Games coin as change from a £5 note, and after noticing the image of Tosha the cat on it, he decided to do some research.

Tosha was the mascot for the 2011 Commonwealth Youth Games, which was held on the island, with ‘Tosha’ meaning first in Manx. It also featured on a Manx stamp.

After looking on eBay Mr Mason discovered he could sell the coin for a substantial amount of money.

A similar coin is up for sale on eBay for as high as £400.

The Isle of Man Treasury doesn’t know how many were made.

Mr Mason said: ‘I had no idea this coin was worth so much.

‘I just received it as change and I thought it was unusual as it had a picture of a cat on it.

‘After finding it was the Tosha mascot cat, I discovered it was going for more than £200 on eBay.’

Mr Mason, who lives in Royton in Greater Manchester, noticed that they were all on eBay as a ‘buy now’ option rather than up for auction, which gave him an idea.

He continued: ‘I took the fact they were all “buy now” as an opportunity to add it to a 24-hour auction list, and I started the bidding at £100 but also put it up at a buy now price of £350.

‘I still never expected it to sell.’

A bidding war between two anonymous Ebay accounts put it up to £190 within an hour of it being up on eBay.

Then in the last hour, after further bids, an account named akaj2010-4 bid £236.74, which wasn’t topped.

Mr Mason described his thoughts when he checked to see how much the coin had been bought for.

He said: ‘I was well and truly shocked.

‘I’m greatly thankful to the buyer, it meant and helped a lot during this cost-of-living crisis. I’m extremely happy.’

Mr Mason went on to encourage people to check their coins.

He added: ‘This helped me massively and could help thousands more who could be sitting with huge value in their back pockets without even knowing it.’

Local coin dealer Paul Quayle believes the £236.74 is ‘almost a bargain’ for this particular coin.

He said: ‘Whoever got the coin for £236 did well.

‘That’s quite a reasonable price for that particular coin.

‘One in a plastic presentation case has just sold for £360 on eBay, on June 22, and they often make over £300, so a coin under £250 is almost a bargain.’

Mr Quayle, from Onchan, recalls selling the coin himself in 2011, but for a lot less money, and believes that was around the time that the value of collectable Manx coins started to rise.

He added: ‘When it first came out I used to sell it for around £10, but then Facebook became popular and lots of different coin groups appeared. The age group of members was generally in the early 20s and they had money burning holes in their pockets and egos to fill, so they would outbid each other and suddenly the prices on some coins skyrocketed.

‘Coins that weren’t particularly collectable were suddenly fetching big money as they decided this or that coin was “the one to have” at any particular time.

‘For example, a Manx 1972 50p which was selling for around £45 shot up to around £750, the same with the 1997 TT 50p.

‘But it couldn’t last and many coins have come down in value.

‘A lot of these youthful collectors are now selling their collections as they have found themselves with a wife, children and a mortgage!’

One of the most elusive Manx coins that still sells for a lot of money is the 1989 £2 coin featuring one of the dirigible airships (a blimp) which were being built at Jurby.

Mr Quayle explained why.

He said: ‘The project never took off and the company folded. The coins were never released and were, as far as we know, destroyed, but a handful remain and when one comes on the market it sells for thousands of pounds.’